World

New storm bears down on New York City

by:By Colleen Long and Frank Eltman

From:
AAP

November 08, 20125:30PM

Major airlines are scrapping flights in the New York area due to an expected winter storm.Source:
AAP

A STORM has blustered into New York and New Jersey with rain and wet snow, plunging homes back into darkness, stopping commuter trains again and inflicting another round of misery on thousands of people still reeling from superstorm Sandy more than a week ago.

Under ordinary circumstances, a storm of this sort wouldn't be a big deal, but large swathes of the landscape were still an open wound, with the electrical system highly fragile and many of Sandy's victims still cleaning their homes and cars and shivering in the deepening cold.

Exactly as authorities feared, the storm on Wednesday brought down tree limbs and electrical wires, and utilities in New York, and New Jersey reported that nearly 60,000 customers who lost power because of Sandy lost it all over again as a result of the nor'easter.

Mark L Fendrick, of Staten Island, tweeted on Wednesday night: "My son had just got his power back 2 days ago now along comes this nor'easter and it's out again."

John Miksad, senior vice president of electric operations at Consolidated Edison, the chief utility in New York City, said, "I know everyone's patience is wearing thin."

As the nor'easter closed in, thousands of people in low-lying neighbourhoods staggered by the superstorm just over a week ago were urged to clear out. Authorities warned that rain and 97km/h gusts in the evening and overnight could topple trees wrenched loose by Sandy and erase some of the hard-won progress made in restoring power to millions of customers.

"I am waiting for the locusts and pestilence next," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said. "We may take a setback in the next 24 hours."

Ahead of the storm, public works crews in New Jersey built up dunes to protect the stripped and battered coast, and new evacuations were ordered in a number of communities already emptied by Sandy. New shelters opened.

In New York City, police went to low-lying neighbourhoods with loudspeakers, urging residents to leave. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn't issue mandatory evacuations, and many people stayed behind, some because they feared looting, others because they figured whatever happens couldn't be any worse than what they have gone through already.

"We're petrified," said James Alexander, a resident of the hard-hit Rockaways section of Queens. "It's like a sequel to a horror movie."

"It's insane at this point - snow with the nor'easter right after the hurricane," 26-year-old Amanda Feluccio of Brooklyn told the New York Daily News.

All construction in New York City was halted - a precaution that needed no explanation after a crane collapsed last week in Sandy's high winds and dangled menacingly over the streets of Manhattan. Parks were closed because of the danger of falling trees. A section of the Long Island Expressway was closed in both directions because of icy conditions.

Airlines cancelled at least 1300 US flights in and out of the New York metropolitan area, causing a new round of disruptions that rippled across the country.

The city manager in Long Beach, New York, urged the roughly 21,000 people who ignored previous mandatory evacuation orders in the badly damaged barrier-island city to get out.

Forecasters said the nor'easter would bring moderate coastal flooding, with storm surges of about a metre possible on Wednesday into Thursday - far less than the two to four metres Sandy hurled at the region. The storm's winds were expected to be well below Sandy's, which gusted to 144.81km/h.

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